Analog Photography at its Besttag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-955797819371415152015-05-07T16:16:21-04:00The best of analog photography since its beginnings, including examples of instant photography curated by an analog photographer and Polaroid's first art director and consultant from 1958-1983. Author of The Branding of Polaroid.TypePadPaying it forwardtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c10fd53ef01bb082aa48e970d2015-05-07T16:16:21-04:002015-12-15T14:38:15-05:00Homage to Ruth Tremaine Giambarba 1932-1978 I took this photo with a Nikon F and a 105mm lens on Kodachrome in Florence, Italy, in the early spring of 1972. While she was alive, Ruth was my muse as well as the subject of hundreds of photographs. Some were posed and...Paul Giambarba

Homage to Ruth Tremaine Giambarba 1932-1978

I took this photo with a Nikon F and a 105mm lens on Kodachrome in Florence, Italy, in the early spring of 1972. While she was alive, Ruth was my muse as well as the subject of hundreds of photographs. Some were posed and some were impromptu taken with off-the-shelf Polaroid pack film and Kodak Tri-X and Kodachrome. I plan to add some of the best in my collection beginning today, the 83rd anniversary of her birth.

This blog was born in September of 2011. Photography has been good to me, as a hobby and as a satisfying 28-year freelance account with the original Polaroid Corporation from 1955 through 1983. I have not asked for financial support. It's my way of paying it forward.

I'm sure there are more photographers I could add to the blog, but at this time in my life I think it best to say farewell and be content with what I've done.

Autochrome Lumière 1903-1930tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c10fd53ef01bb08239ed8970d2015-04-26T00:05:00-04:002015-05-02T16:25:05-04:00I've just discovered excellent color photographs that were taken 100 years ago in Britain, in 1913 Christina in Red, an article by Amanda Uren in Retronaut on mashable.com at this link. Click on images to enlarge them. Christina, photographed in 1913 by her father, Mervyn O'Gorman, at Lulworth Cove, Dorset,...Paul Giambarba

I've just discovered excellent color photographs that were taken 100 years ago in Britain, in 1913 Christina in Red, an article by Amanda Uren in Retronaut on mashable.com at this link. Click on images to enlarge them.

Christina, photographed in 1913 by her father, Mervyn O'Gorman, at Lulworth Cove, Dorset, England. Christina's excellent choice of red is a color which the Autochrome process reproduced well.

Ms. Uren writes, "Mervyn O'Gorman was 42 when he took these pictures of his daughter, Christina O'Gorman at Lulworth Cove, in the English county of Dorset. He photographed Christina wearing a red swimming costume and red cloak, a colour particularly suited to the early color Autochrome process.

Autochrome was one of the first colour photo technologies, which used glass plates coated in potato starches to filter pictures with dye."

I lightened the color here by 50%, something a photoengraver would have done before publication.

This was the image with the sharpest resolution, quite remarkable for its time. It would have suffered from the evolving print technology available in 1913.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s National Geographic sent photographer Clifton R. Adams to England to record its farms, towns and cities, and its people at work and play. Adams recorded it all in color using the Autochrome process.

Clifton R. Adams was 38 years old when he took these pictures. He photographed many other European countries, as well as Central and North America, working for National Geographic from 1920 until his death in 1934, aged just 44.

The following photos are by Clifton R. Adams/National Geographic Creative/Corbis

Two bus drivers stand in front of a tour bus in Ulverston, Cumbria.

Actors dress for a pageant as Britannia and her knights.

Britannia, her colonies and dependencies, in Southampton, Hampshire.

A war veteran selling matches on the street, in Canterbury, Kent.

A policeman directing buses in Trafalgar Square, London.

The Cunard liner "Mauretania" at dock, in Southampton.

A London double-decker bus of the period.

A police constable passing the time of day with farmers gathering hay, in Lancashire.

Two women resting for lunch in a Lancashire hayfield.

An English woman points pridefully to her farm cart, in Cambridgeshire, England.

An informal portrait of a farmer and his cart, in Crowland, Lincolnshire.

Two women buy ice cream from a vendor out of his converted car, in Cornwall.